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In an essay, ideas and information cannot be presented all at once; they have to be arranged in some order. That order is the essay’s organization.

The pattern of organization in an essay should be suited to the writer’s subject and purpose. For example, if you are writing about your experience working in a fast-food restaurant and your purpose is to tell about the activities of a typical day, you might present those activities in chronological order. If, on the other hand, you wish to argue that working in a bank is an ideal summer job, you might proceed from the least rewarding to the most rewarding aspect of this job; this is called climactic order.

Some common patterns of organization are chronological order, space order, and logical order.

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Chronological Order Chronological order, or time order, is used to present a sequence of events as they occurred. A personal narrative, a report of a campus incident, or an account of a historical event can be most naturally and easily related in chronological order. In the following paragraphs, student writer Jeffrey Olesky uses chronological order to recount an important lesson he learned. You can read Olesky’s entire essay on pages 34–38 of this book.

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Of course, the order of events can sometimes be rearranged for special effect. For example, an account of an auto accident may begin with the collision itself and then flash back in time to the events leading up to it. The description of a process — such as framing a poster or serving a tennis ball — almost always calls for a chronological organization.

When analyzing a causally related series of events, writers often use a chronological organization to clarify for readers the exact sequence of events. In the following example, the writer examines sequentially the series of malfunctions that led to the near disaster at the Three Mile Island nuclear facility in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, showing clearly how each one led to the next:

On March 28, 1979, at 3:53 a.m., a pump at the Harrisburg plant failed. Because the pump failed, the reactor’s

heat was not drawn off in the heat exchanger and the very hot water in the primary loop overheated. The pressure

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in the loop increased, opening a release valve that was supposed to counteract such an event. But the valve stuck

open and the primary loop system lost so much water (which ended up as a highly radioactive pool, six feet deep,

on the floor of the reactor building) that it was unable to carry off all the heat generated within the reactor core.

Under these circumstances, the intense heat held within the reactor could, in theory, melt its fuel rods, and the

resulting “meltdown” could then carry a hugely radioactive mass through the floor of the reactor. The reactor’s

emergency cooling system, which is designed to prevent this disaster, was then automatically activated, but when it

was, apparently, turned off too soon, some of the fuel rods overheated.

–Barry Commoner, The Politics of Energy

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Space Order Space order is used when describing a person, place, or thing. This organizational pattern begins at a particular point and moves in some direction, such as left to right, top to bottom, east to west, outside to inside, front to back, near to far, around, or over. In describing a house, for example, a writer could move from top to bottom, from outside to inside, or in a circle around the outside.

In the following paragraph, the subject is a baseball, and the writer describes it from the inside out, moving from its “composition-cork nucleus” to the print on its stitched cowhide cover:

It weighs just over five ounces and measures between 2.86 and 2.94 inches in diameter. It is made of a

composition-cork nucleus encased in two thin layers of rubber, one black and one red, surrounded by 121 yards of

tightly wrapped blue-gray wool yarn, 45 yards of white wool yarn, 54 more yards of blue-gray wool yarn, 150 yards

of fine cotton yarn, a coat of rubber cement, and a cowhide (formerly horsehide) exterior, which is held together

with 216 slightly raised red cotton stitches. Printed certifications, endorsements, and outdoor advertising

spherically attest to its authenticity.

–Roger Angell, Five Seasons: A Baseball Companion

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Logical Order Logical order can take many forms, depending on the writer’s purpose. Often-used patterns include general to specific, most familiar to least familiar, and smallest to biggest. Perhaps the most common type of logical order is order of importance. Notice how the writer uses this order in the following paragraph:

The Egyptians have taught us many things. They were excellent farmers. They knew all about irrigation. They

built temples which were afterwards copied by the Greeks and which served as the earliest models for the churches

in which we worship nowadays. They invented a calendar which proved such a useful instrument for the purpose of

measuring time that it has survived with few changes until today. But most important of all, the Egyptians learned

how to preserve speech for the benefit of future generations. They invented the art of writing.

–Hendrick Willem Van Loon, The Story of Mankind

By organizing the material according to the order of increasing importance, the writer places special emphasis on the final sentence.

A student essay on outdoor education provides another example of logical order. In the paragraph that follows, the writer describes some of the special problems students have during the traditionally difficult high school years. She then explains the benefits of involving such students in an outdoor education curriculum as a possible remedy, offers a quotation from a noteworthy text on outdoor education to support her views, and presents her thesis statement at the end of the paragraph — all logical steps in her writing.

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Although logical order can take many forms, the exact rationale always depends on the topic of the writing. For example, in writing a descriptive essay about a place you visited, you can move from the least striking to the most striking detail to keep your readers interested and involved in the description. In an essay explaining how to pick individual stocks for investment, you can start with the point that readers will find the least difficult to understand and move on to the most difficult point. (That’s how many teachers organize their courses.) Or in writing an essay arguing for more internships and service learning courses, you can move from your least controversial to your most controversial point, preparing your reader gradually to accept your argument.